Russell Brand: Jonathan Ross tried to make me drop 'Sachsgate' broadcast

Russell Brand has today revealed how Jonathan Ross tried to persuade him to drop the controversial "Sachsgate" broadcast that would end with both of them leaving the BBC.

He said Ross twice suggested that the answerphone messages to actor Andrew Sachs – in which he said Brand had "fucked" his granddaughter – should not be broadcast on Brand's Radio 2 show.

"I said I thought they were funny so we decided to leave them in," Brand writes in his new book, Booky Wook 2: This Time It's Personal, serialised in today's Sun.

Brand claimed that the BBC knew there might be a problem with the broadcast even before the Mail on Sunday splashed on the story a week later and despite the fact there had only been two listener complaints about Brand "teasing Jonathan for his soft Rs".

"There was an awareness among the BBC's administrative hierarchy that something a bit dodgy had happened," wrote Brand. "For the next week's show they asked us not to refer to the incident, which I didn't. Well, I did a bit."

As the complaints began to snowball in the wake of the Mail on Sunday's splash about the incident, Brand said the "BBC didn't contact me but the Radio 2 controller, Lesley Douglas, told me not to worry and that we'd be all right".

Both Brand and Douglas resigned from the BBC in the wake of the scandal, as did the station's head of compliance, Dave Barber. Ross was given a three-month unpaid suspension and left the corporation at the end of his contract earlier this year.

Brand said the idea for leaving a message on Sachs's answer machine "probably" came from his producer, Gareth Roy.

"Our producer Gareth Roy came in about halfway through and told us Andrew Sachs wasn't answering his phone, and we said: 'No problem'. This continued throughout the show until someone suggested leaving a message on his answerphone.

"Now, I don't want to point the finger, given the tremendous repercussions, but it was probably Gareth's idea. From behind the glass plate that separates the engineers and producers from the talent, the men from the boys, the signal came that Andrew Sachs's phone was ringing."

Brand also talks about the discussion within the production team about whether to leave the voicemail messages in the show for broadcast.

"We did – Jonathan, the crew and myself – have a discussion about whether to include the phone calls in the completed show," Brand wrote in the book.

"Jonathan said maybe they should be cut out, a few of the crew thought they should be removed. I said I thought they were funny so we decided to leave them in.

"On the way home Jonathan called again to say the phone calls should probably be taken out, but I reassured him: 'Nah, I think they're pretty solid.'

"The show went out that night and there were two complaints, both about me teasing Jonathan for his soft Rs, a delightfully convenient comic speech impediment he sometimes has.

"There was no mention of the phone calls anywhere. Our listeners knew the show was anarchic and silly and sometimes crossed the line, but as I always say: 'There is no line. People draw that line in afterwards to fuck you up.'"

Brand said it was a "mistake" to leave the messages on Sachs's answerphone but added: "At the time I was so incensed by the media reaction, which I still consider to be hugely disproportionate, that I too quickly disregarded my own transgression."

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